It's been a long time since I poured my thoughts in this blog. I have been looking for inspiration to drive me to think again and draft my thoughts.
Today I realized one thing that somehow made me think.... Hmmmn... why not put my thoughts into writing.
Nov 1 2009. Philippines will always be on holiday on this day for All Saints Day. This is a day where we all go to the cemetery to visit our dead relatives.
My day started early I was tasked to fetch my grandfather's sister in the airport. She arrives this day to visit her dead parents and dead brother (my grandpa) and her dead sister (i was not born when she died of cancer). Since the airport is an hour drive from our home, I had to wake up extra early to be able to get there on time.
Luckily, I was just on time when I got to the airport. After fetching her, she told me she wants to go to the cemetery but we have to stop by a local store to buy candles to offer to the dead people.
When we arrived at the store, it was packed with people buying all sorts of candles, from the tiny white simple ones up to those candles with dragon designs, which I bet would last for a few days because of its overly enormous size. At the back of my head, I was thinking " hmmmm not bad for a dead business". It took us almost 20 minutes because of the long line of customers buying candles.
From the candle store, we went to fetch the care taker of my dead relative's tomb. We have to fetch him since the keys to the mini house is with him and since a lot has changed in the cemetery we might get lost finding our relative's area.
It was a hot day, and when we were near the entrance of the cemetery, the whole road was closed because they are expecting heavy traffic of vehicles. We have no choice but to park our car on a nearby lot and we had to walk going inside.
By the way part of the chinese culture that we have is apart from lighting candles, we also offer food, drinks, flowers and burn incense for our dead family.
So walking to the cemetery we carried, flowers, candles, foods, drinks. ( I know this is going to look like someone is gonna have a picnic).
After finding our way to the narrow paths covered with mud, grass, tombs sometimes open tombs, we found our spot.
When we got there, our care taker realized he forgot to bring the keys! He has to go back to his house and get the keys and we had to wait for him under the heat of the sun with our "picnic baskets".
After 10 minutes he managed to return and we eventually were able to get in. We lighted candles, offered the food and drinks we brought.
I saw my grandfather's sister looked at the tomb of her parents and prayed.
(my great grand mom's resting place)
As she was facing the empty white wall and praying. I am almost tempted to take a photo of her. She looked like she was talking to the flower and the empty wall.
I cannot help but think.. Was this all worth it? Does it matter at all to the dead relatives? All these hassles of having to book a flight to visit them and light candles for them. Does it really impact them on their world?
I may sound so skeptical, but learning the cultures of other countries when dealing with death just made me realized and asked this question. Why the hassle of doing all these?
I witness a death ceremony in India. It was morbid on how they publicly burn their dead bodies.
Tibet culture, chops the dead bodies of their relatives and feed them to the vultures. They believe that these birds help bring their dead relatives to heaven. Another point is that, dead bodies are useless already, it would be better to make use of it by feeding the animals.
I am not against our local culture, on how we pay so much value and respect to our dead relatives.
All these things made me believed further that our life is just a journey, we come here on Earth and we go to our next destination. Everything is temporary and nothing will last forever. We will all die and rot.
Honestly, when it will be my time to die. I would be happy to donate whatever functioning organs I have to people who may need it. Whatever is left of me shall be cremated. I want my ashes to thrown in the beach. And I may sound so tough, but I prefer that my relatives will just let go of me completely and to move on happily with their lives. That way they wont be hassled to bring their picnic baskets and have the obligation to visit my dead decaying body and offer flowers and candles in my tomb.
One funny irony I realized that made me laugh inside myself. Today I saw how much our culture hold on to our dead relatives. We do all these rituals to show so much respect and value to our beloved dead. We offer them food and flowers, as if they can eat it. That is how much respect is shown in our culture.
The irony is....
While we were looking for my great grandparents tomb, the cemetery was poorly planned that pathways we're either blocked, covered with mud and cemented tombs are just everywhere.
Since there was no proper pathways, my grandfather's sister with my aunt who was walking ahead of me. I cannot help myself and took a photo of them walking and stepping into other dead people's cemented tombs just to be able to walk easily and avoid the muddy paths.
Now I asked myself.... Where is respect there?
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